In Carmen's youth, when someone told you that you had SKILLZ, that was a serious compliment. It meant that you had mastered some serious techniques (in rhyming, drawing, singing, piano playing, writing, etc). Not only had you mastered those techniques, you did something fantastic with those techniques: you took them to a whole other level. The word, skillz, thus, is NOT the same thing as the word, skills--- a word that circulates widely in schooling's lesson plans (skillz is NOT a misspelling as many Old Skool pundits might exclaim). Showing your skills in school usually means that you have mastered the basics, the how-to's, and the correct application of a standard set of rules. Skillz, however, is not a standard defined by institutions. It is not about acquiring the basics... it's about exceeding the basics to move a crowd your way. Yes, there will be skills that we talk about in this class, but your ultimate job is to acquire SKILLZ for how and what you write! Know the difference!

There is no handbook for this class. Instead, we will use skills activities already available online. If there is a particular issue that you need to individually explore more, we will discuss that one-on-one. These links will also be updated based on the class's needs. If you have favorite online resources to add to this module, email them to: ckynard@jjay.cuny.edu.

Thank you to the Purdue OWL, the Ohio State University Writing Center, the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Harvard College Writing Programs, PowerpointSpice, Flip Tips... for their wonderful online tutorials which are all linked to these pages.